


Five Warnings Nate Wishes Had Come on G Callen

by Waldo



Category: NCIS: Los Angeles
Genre: 5 Things, Angst, Community: smallfandomfest, Episode: s01e13 Missing, Episode: s01e21 Found, Episode: s01e23 Burned, Episode: s01e24 Callen G, M/M, POV Outsider
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-25
Updated: 2010-06-25
Packaged: 2017-10-10 06:58:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/96901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Waldo/pseuds/Waldo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nate wishes Callen came with some warnings, but since he didn't, he'll apply his own as he sees fit.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Warning: May Contain Small Parts

**Author's Note:**

> Written for LJ Community: smallfandomfest, where the prompt was: Nate wonders if people came with warning labels, what would Callen's say?
> 
> Fantastic beta job done by OnlyOneChoice . Thank you so much!

Nate had the completely unenviable position of deciding when an agent's 'minor' injury was enough to keep them at their desk for a few days. He tried to give them the benefit of the doubt, let them bench themselves for a day or two until they could shoot with both hands, run on both feet and see through both eyes without double vision. But in all his time with NCIS, he'd never met a field agent who accepted that anything less than a complete amputation was a good reason to admit to needing a few days of light duty.

G Callen was probably the worst. Sure, he'd stayed in the hospital and then Sam's place for a few weeks after taking five to the chest, but even then he'd moved out to some creepy little hotel long before he or Macy or even his friend Gibbs had thought it prudent for him to be on his own.

Which meant that there was no way G was going to sit himself out after what he called 'a little scuffle'.

Fortunately, Nate almost always had an ally.

"You couldn't even sign your own discharge papers, G," Sam complained as Nate flipped through the file from the hospital.

Nate took the DVD out of the envelope and put it into the nearest computer station and pulled up the x-ray of G's right hand. "Do you know how many bones are in the human hand, Callen?" he asked, cutting into the on-going bickering behind him.

"Twenty-seven," G answered without missing a beat.

"Know how many you have right now?" Nate asked, and then before G could answer he said, "Twenty-nine. Both your middle and ring finger are broken." Nate continued to scrutinize the x-ray for any more damage.

"That would be where he got his hand slammed in the car door, before his head damn near shattered the window," Sam filled him in.

"Yeah, you can just sit your ass down behind your desk for a week," Nate said trying to out-cool G.

By the way G and Sam both started laughing he realized that his tough-guy act still needed a lot of work.

He let them laugh, but made sure they were looking when he pulled up the form that would bench G for the next five days or until Nate signed him off as fit for active duty.

That was one way to get the last laugh.


	2. Warning: Contains Ethanol

G would ask one day him if 'control freak' actually occurred in the DSM IV. And Nate would tell him that it was listed as a synonym for "obsessive compulsive disorder" and then add, "And yes, I've diagnosed you with it. Along with half-a-dozen other things that actually do appear in the DSM IV."

Not that there weren't many, many good reasons for G to be compulsive about keeping his identity a secret. He was one of, if not _the_ best under-cover operative the country had. And the number of difficult, if not downright impossible, situations he'd gotten himself into and back out of again gave him the right to be a little paranoid about keeping his identity and what little personal information he had tightly guarded secrets.

Which is why he would have never expected to see the man anywhere near point-oh-eight. It was an enlightening experience, for as long as Nate was sober enough himself to apply his analytical mind to what he was seeing. Eventually, of course, the large number of tequila shots Kensi was putting in front of him required that he use _all_ of his brain power to simply remain upright. But the first hour or so, when he'd been mostly sober… very interesting.

Only Hetty could find an upscale karaoke bar in downtown L.A. He, Eric, Hetty and Kensi had gone in Kensi's car, while Sam drove him and G.

Once they'd arrived, Sam had given his credit card to the bartender and told her to leave the tab open. He got himself a beer and let everyone else at the bar name their own poisons. G had ordered a lemon-lime soda and Sam had told her to add a shot of vodka, at which point G had decided to roll with it and told the bartender to make sure it was Stoli.

Nate would have put good money on G sitting and nursing that one drink all night. Make it look like he was getting into the swing of things, but not really _drinking_.

They sat and watched the singers for a few minutes, sipping their drinks, and not talking much. Nate watched G out of the corner of one eye, noting that he'd finished his first drink and he'd let Sam put a second one in front of him.

Maybe it was the alcohol working on his own brain, but he swore there were a number of things that suddenly made a whole lot of sense. Sam was the one pacing himself, only drinking beer, and fairly slowly at that. Sam had driven, and Nate had noticed G throwing his duffle in the trunk, which more than likely meant that G would end up going home with Sam at the end of the night.

From a psychological standpoint, Nate found G's absolute inability to settle on a place fascinating. Nate knew that before G was shot he moved a few times a year, but since being shot he rarely slept in the same place two nights in a row, unless Sam could convince him to stay at his place for a few days. Nate was pretty sure the longest Callen had stayed in one place in the past six months was the week and a half he'd stayed at Sam's once he'd been sprung from the hospital.

Nate had thought that once they'd caught the bastard that had set him up to be killed, G would no longer feel like he needed to present himself as a moving target and he would settle down. But he hadn't, and Sam had quit offering lodging suggestions, at least where Nate could hear them, except to suggest fairly frequently that G stay with him.

Nate looked down the bar to where Sam and Hetty were going over the karaoke menu. He didn't realize he was staring until Kensi elbowed him and set another drink in front of him. "You gonna sing?" she asked.

"What? Huh? I- uh… No." Nate answered, fumbling over his words even more than usual. He stared into his glass for a minute. "What am I drinking now?" he asked, not recognizing the dark amber liquid.

"Long Island Ice Tea," Kensi told him, clinking her own green Martini against his glass, "Bottoms up."

"I don't really care for iced –" Kensi cut him off by taking his hand and putting the glass in it. "No, really, I'm not an iced tea fan." He could feel the previous drinks slowing his speech and the edges of his vision blur just a tiny bit.

"S'okay," Kensi slurred back, her arm around his shoulders, "With five different kinds of booze in there, you won't taste much else." She stopped and squinted at his glass for a second. "And I think they use Coke for color not actual iced tea. But don't quote me on that."

In Nate's Tequila-soaked world, that made perfect sense. He took a large sip. "Oh, you're right."

When he looked back down the bar, past Eric, Sam's arm was around G's shoulders and they were looking over the karaoke songs.

"Okay, time to get this party started," Sam announced as he ruffled G's hair and headed for the stage. Nate almost choked on his no-tea Iced Tea. No way in hell anyone else in the world would have gotten away with that, but it was Sam, so Callen didn't even shrug him off or slug him in the arm. Nate wondered how many pieces he'd end up in if _he_ tried ruffling Callen's hair. Not that he ever would. He knew that they didn't have the same kind of relationship with Callen as his partner did. He was pretty sure no one had that same kind of relationship with Callen as his partner did.__

G leaned one elbow on the bar and turned his attention to where Sam was pulling the mic off its stand and straightening out the cord. He nodded to the guy running the equipment and after almost no musical introduction, started singing, "My… funny valentine… sweet, funny valentine…"

Sam stared into the middle space between the stage and the bar as he sang, occasionally glancing up to look at them. To look at his partner. Nate wanted to laugh at the old song, but he had to admit, Sam could sing.

The song was half-over when Nate glanced at G again. G hadn't moved and though Nate could only see the back of Callen's head, he was pretty sure that G's eyes hadn't left his partner since the music started.

The whole bar had gotten quieter once Sam started singing, clearly impressed with his rendition of the classic song. And the whole place broke into applause and whistles and cheers when the last note faded and Sam put the mic back on its stand.

The sudden noise seemed to break G out of whatever spell the alcohol and sound had cast over him and Nate knew it was a total face-saving exercise when Callen began ribbing Sam about his musical tastes. He'd been more than a little impressed.

Some very tipsy, very ditzy girl from the table behind them had been flirting with Eric all night and had taken over Sam's stool by the time he returned. Nate wondered if it was that Sam was a SEAL and therefore, by definition, a gentleman that he didn't ask her for his seat back, or if it was because he didn't want to risk Eric's technological wrath if he interrupted. Whatever the case, he came to stand behind G, one hand on G's shoulder as he pointed to the bartender and signaled for another round for the entire group. Nate grabbed his drink and drained the rest of it, before the next round could show up. He wondered if at some point he should order his own or if letting Kensi decide what he was served would be a good excuse for being useless in the morning.

By the time he'd pushed his glass to the far side of the bar so it could be collected, G had leaned back into Sam's chest and Nate got the distinct impression that if Sam were to suddenly take a step back, G would land on his ass on the floor. The bartender interrupted his observation by setting a coaster and a fresh drink in front of him, and by the time he looked back, G was staggering off his stool, saying something about, "what true karaoke should sound like."

For a brief second, as Sam steadied G with a hand on his hip, Nate wasn't sure G would make it to the stage without faceplanting on someone's table, but Callen being Callen he actually got more sure-footed and steady with each step he took and he made it to the D.J.-like-guy and then to the stage without incident.

Nate made a face as he heard the introduction to "To All the Girls I've Loved Before" and wondered aloud, "How's he going to do a duet by himself?"

Sam, who had since commandeered G's seat leaned back towards him, "G's been his own company for years now. I'm sure he has this worked out."

They both almost fell off their stools when G held his nose to sing the Willie Nelson bits.

Unlike G, Sam almost couldn't watch G perform. He looked at his drink, toyed with his napkin and, if Nate could judge by the angle of his head, stared at a space about three feet to the left of Callen's ear. It wasn't until G was making his way back to the bar that Nate realized that he'd been trying not to laugh too hard at his partner, even though it had been pretty hysterical.

With no stool to come back to, G wedged himself between Nate and Sam. He reached past Sam to grab the list of songs and plopped it down in front of Nate. "You're next, Nate," he announced.

Nate pushed the list away with the bottom of his glass, as if he were afraid to touch it. "No, no, I don't think so."

Kensi grabbed the list. "Ooh, here's one made just for you, Nate." She put the list back down on the bar and, begrudgingly, Nate looked where she was pointing.

"Very, funny. I'm not singing Madonna," he protested.

"Why not? I'd be willing to bet you're the only guy in this bar who could do 'Like a Virgin' and have it be believable," G chipped in.

"She wasn't pointing to – hey! I'm not –" Nate started to regret that last drink. Possibly the last four. "She was pointing to 'Crazy for You'."

Sam grabbed the list back, bracing himself on Callen's shoulder as he stretched. "How about 'Crazy' by Seal?'

"I was thinking of 'Cult of Personality'," Kensi added without even needing the list.

Callen took it from his partner, flipping through it. "Ozzy's 'Crazy Train'?"

"Nate doesn't strike me as the Ozzy sort," Kensi said, a slight slur to her words. "He seems more the boy-band type. Maybe 'N Sync's 'I Drive Myself Crazy'? Lord knows you drive everyone else crazy," she added, her arm draped around Nate's shoulder, her face close enough to his that Nate could smell the apple-something in whatever it was she was drinking.

In self-preservation, Nate grabbed the list. Kensi's last suggestion had given him an idea that he might be able to pull off without embarrassing himself too badly. "Not 'N Sync," he complained going back to the first page. "If you know anything about nineties music, you know that The Backstreet Boys had far superior harmonies and lyrical quality." He slid off his stool and headed for the stage knowing that he could walk on his own or get dragged by three federal agents. He might have an ounce of dignity left after this if he went voluntarily.

As he concentrated on not falling over before he got to the stage he heard G ask in disbelief, "Please tell me he did not just get all superior about _boy bands_," and then crack up laughing like Nate had never heard him laugh before.

Even through his fog it was good to know that G could unwind enough to let himself really go, under the right circumstances.


	3. Warning: Guard Dog on Duty

Nate scowled as he realized that he wasn't going to be getting his last report in before the end of the day. Hetty was being incredibly understanding about the fact that it was taking everyone longer than normal to process, accept and report on what had happened to Dom, but in another day or two he was going to have to explain that he couldn't do his last two Agent-Involved Shooting Reports because one of her agents had been cockblocking him every time he'd made an attempt for the past four days.

If it was just Callen refusing to talk about what had happened on that roof, Nate would have done… well, what he usually did when Callen dug his heels in: reported that Callen was digging his heels in and then embellished the rest from there.

But no, Callen was keeping him away from _Sam_ with a skill that impressed Nate more than he wanted it to.

He had a startling array of tactics.

He'd been stern and gruff, simply warning Nate that Sam needed more time to deal on his own and that Callen would look very poorly upon anyone who cornered Sam right now.

He'd been degrading, asking Nate if his degrees were worth the paper they were printed on if he couldn't see that Sam wasn't ready to sit there and pretend that he was okay with what had happened on top of that theater. Nate had tried to explain that he wasn't looking for Sam to act or feel any other way than he was, but Callen couldn't be moved.

He'd even been self-sacrificing, telling Nate that he was ready to talk about Dom and the terrorists he'd shot to keep him from trying to ask Sam the same questions. Nate, never one to look a gift-horse in the mouth, knew he had to take the opportunity to get the only other interview he needed to complete even if he knew damn well Callen was bullshitting him in order to redirect him. At least he could write up the bullshitting.

Once Callen had shot that load, he'd become sneaky. Every time Nate started up a casual conversation with Sam, Callen miraculously appeared and invited himself into the discussion, keeping Nate from segueing into the discussion he'd needed to have with Sam.

But Nate was sneaky in his own way. He'd subtly hinted to G, during the latest conversation G had interrupted between him and Sam that Kensi could use a sounding board. That maybe he could take her out for a burger, see if she'd open up more to a fellow agent than she'd wanted to during a formal psych evaluation.

It was a few hours before the two of them actually left, but after they had, Sam had gone up to work on the heavy bag for a while. Nate grabbed a chair where he could keep an eye on him and pretended to work on some paperwork and waited for him to finish.

Once Sam stopped pounding, he turned to stare at Nate. "Let's get this damn thing over with. Don't think I don't know you sent G out of the office so he'd get out of your way."

Nate smiled a little 'busted' smile and inclined his head to the ad hoc office a few of the techs had set up in a corner of the loft, and he watched as Sam wandered over collapsed into a chair.

Nate followed, staying silent, leaning forward, elbows on his knees, waiting. Letting Sam decide how this would start. "I'm not as bottled-up as you think."

"How so?" Nate asked, even though he was pretty sure he knew the answer.

"My partner and best friend is G Callen," Sam answered as if that explained everything.

In some ways, Nate figured it did.


	4. Warning: Objects in the Rearview Mirror May Appear Closer Than They Are

The last month had been hell on them all. First they'd found Dom and then lost him all over again. Callen had been burned, but he'd killed the only person who could expose him - who also happened to be the only person who seemed to know anything about his past.

Only that didn't seem to be entirely true by the time the whole story unraveled. Keelson was gone, but then there was this girl telling Callen that he had a sister, but that she was dead.

Nate knew that Callen was used to loss and disappointment and being alone. He wasn't sure he bought it when G told him that he was happier that way – alone – but Nate didn't know how to even approach him with the idea that letting someone in might make all the rest of it a little easier to bear.

There hadn't been a case in a few days. They'd been mopping up the last few reports and details of the past month and otherwise just hanging out in the Ops Center, taking solace in the company of their team.

Callen had spent an inordinate amount of time just sitting at his desk and staring at nothing, much like he was now. Nate caught Sam's eye and inclined his head towards G. Sam shrugged and Nate let out a long sigh. If G wasn't confiding in Sam, he probably wasn't talking to anyone.

Nate thought about trying to pull G upstairs to his make-shift loft office. A few over-stuffed chairs and end tables weren't a substitute for walls and a door, but it was out of the way and less public than the bullpen, and he'd appreciated it more and more these past few weeks.

He grabbed Kensi's chair instead and sat across from G, resting his arms on the edge of the desk. "Whatcha thinking about?" He kept his tone easy and quiet; if he tried to make this an actual 'session', he knew G would shut down before they even made it to the steps."

G looked up and glanced around, taking in who was in the room, likely to overhear. Satisfied that only Sam would possibly hear anything he said, G leaned back in his chair, stretching his arms behind his head. He took a couple of deep breaths and opened his mouth like he was about to say something, but then shut it again. Nate watched him, knew when G's eyes met Sam's. He wasn't sure what Sam did or didn't do that let G think it was okay – possibly even a good idea – to talk, but after another deep breath he did.

"I'm thinking that Eric can take a piece of grainy video from some cheap-ass gas station security camera or someone's crap camera phone and clean it up enough that he can run facial recognition and that we can get someone's life story with the push of a few buttons." G looked up at the ceiling and sighed again. "It's a neat trick."

Nate leaned back a bit, studying G. He was sure this was significant, but he had no idea where it was going. "You've always struck me as more the guy in the room, than the guy back here at the computer, but I'm sure he could show you how."

"Won't help," G muttered.

"Why not?" Nate asked, trying not to look as surprised as he was feeling about how little resistance he was getting from G.

"Because you can't run a memory through something manufactured by IBM."

"Ah. True. Any particular memory you're trying to clarify?"

G rubbed his forehead and then leaned forward on his hand. "That girl Amy – Hannah – whatever her name is… she dragged up this memory from when I was… really little. She said my sister used to push me in a red wagon and I _swear_ I remember that. I remember falling out." He turned his hand over, showing Nate the thin white mark on his left wrist. "I remember her crying as she used her jacket to stop the bleeding. I remember thinking that it was weird that she was crying. I always thought the person hurt was supposed to cry. But I didn't feel like crying, and she didn't seem hurt."

Nate could tell when G got lost in the memory, so he kept an eye out to make sure no one interrupted them or overheard. He waited quietly, letting G talk himself out.

It startled him when G literally shook himself out of the past before saying anything else. "But the thing is… there's a lot that doesn't make sense. Have you ever met a five-year-old, Nate?" G asked, seemingly apropos to nothing.

"A few, sure, why?"

"They know their name?"

Nate nodded, realizing with painful clarity now where this was going. "I was always told - my record even says - that I went into foster care at five. How the hell do I not know my name? If I had a sister wouldn't she have told _someone_ my damn name?"

Nate grimaced. He hated not having an answer or even knowing who to go to for a possible answer. "Your records are… sketchy at best. There's no record of you having a sister in anything NCIS has on you."

"I know," Callen said quietly. "And yet, I remember that girl. I remember the wagon and I have this damn scar." He gave Nate a challenging look, daring him to make sense of it all. "Maybe she was a foster sister… or… something."

"I don't know, Callen," Nate said apologetically. "Even in the early seventies most social services were using some kind of computerized record keeping and yet, we can't find much on you at all. I've looked, _Hetty's_ looked… I wish I could help."

G nodded. "I know. It's not your fault. I just… I can't decide if I'm hoping someone's fucking with my head – rather successfully, I must admit - or if I really did have a sister. Even if there's no chance I'll ever get to meet her."

Nate wasn't sure which outcome was better either. "I suppose if you had sister you might be able to use records of her to trace other family members. Maybe you had aunts or uncles or cousins."

G gave Nate a twisted grin. "Not ones who wanted anything to do with me, or I wouldn't have ended up in foster care. Besides, who am I then? Say I find someone. Who does that make me? Right now I'm the go-to guy when NCIS – or, hell, just about any federal agency – needs someone expendable. Someone no one will miss. If I have family somewhere, who do I become then?"

Nate was completely unsurprised when G stood up and walked out of the room after that. He hated that he almost felt glad, because while he'd known for a long time that while G was extremely competent that he did have self-worth issues that ran pretty deep. Deep enough to stack thirty-seven foster homes in. But he'd never realized that he'd formed so much of his identity based on the idea that he was expendable rather than the fact that he was capable. Once again he remembered why he was an operational psychologist and not a clinical one.

He was grateful when he heard Sam's chair rattle across the floor and Sam bellow, "Get your ass back here, G. You cannot think you get to make a statement like that and just walk out. No fucking way!" as he chased his partner to the door.

Nate knew it was unlikely he'd ever get G to deal with the emotions he'd been battling the last several days with him, but it was okay because Sam was far more tenacious than he was, and if G started swinging, well, better Sam than him.


	5. Warning: Rated R, Not Appropriate for Children Under Seventeen

They had two witnesses in the arms smuggling case. One was Lieutenant Jefferson's rackmate; they'd be picking him up when he got back from Tacoma on Tuesday. The other was his son. In fact, the whole thing had unspooled when Jake Jefferson had returned from a weekend at his dad's and told his mom what he had seen. The ex-Mrs. Jefferson had called the LAPD who put her in touch with NCIS.

So Sam and G had interviewed a ten-year-old while Nate watched on the monitor.

He was honestly a little surprised how well G was able to handle a kid. Nate was pretty sure that G had never actually _been_ a 'kid' himself and didn't seem to have any interest in voluntarily interacting with them, but he and Sam managed to get the boy to give them everything he knew without terrifying him that he was about to send his dad to the brig for at least the next five years, and that only if he could manage a plea deal.

When it became clear that Jake had actually brought one of the guns home in his backpack, Kensi had taken his mom back their Simi Valley apartment to retrieve it, while the guys finished the questioning.

Nate had found it cute when Jake had told his mom that he was okay with her leaving him there to finish answering questions. Apparently he had decided Sam was now his bodyguard. "And besides," he said pointing to the camera mounted near the ceiling, "they're recording everything. They won't do anything to me."

Which allowed them to move that much faster on the case, but it left them with a ten-year-old to babysit for three hours while Kensi fought through traffic there and back.

Eventually G and Sam had gotten what they needed from the kid and gone back to Ops, leaving Nate alone with him. Nate spent a few minutes asking the kind of questions he knew the agents wouldn't. How did he feel about 'telling on' his dad? Had he ever felt in danger when he discovered the guns? Had his father threatened him?

Satisfied that the kid was actually dealing pretty well, he'd turned the conversation to normal things like school and Jake's soccer team - a conversation that filled another whole fifteen minutes at best.

He poked at the computer for a while, but the network wasn't really designed to let kids surf the net or play video games. Which gave him an idea. He hit a few keys, bringing Eric's face up on the screen.

"Hey Nate. Everything okay?"

"Fine. Other than having a bored forth grader on my hands. Can you come out to the boathouse for a few minutes?"

Eric looked down at his keyboard and Nate suspected Eric was panning the camera - scanning the room for Jake. His suspicions were confirmed when Eric leaned closer to his camera and whispered, "You're dumping babysitting on me?"

Nate chuckled. "No. I thought maybe you could get through the firewalls on the computers out here so he could watch a movie or play a game or something. Kensi's not going to be back for a while."

Eric sat back up, apparently surprised that it was such a simple request. "Yeah, I can do that. Be there in a few."

&lt;{*}&gt;

When G came back to the boathouse to check on Jake, he found Nate, Eric and the kid sitting in front of the computer monitor, eating the bag of chips that he'd left on top of the fridge the last time he'd slept there.

"Wow, I really need to find work for at least two of you," he said, knowing that none of them had even heard him come in.

Predictably, Eric and Nate jumped, but Jake was apparently too into the movie to notice.

"We were keeping an eye on – you know, because his mom –" Nate stammered.

G rolled his eyes. "This takes two of you?" he asked with a slight glare at Eric.

"Nate –" Eric said, hiking a thumb at his partner in crime. "Nate asked me to come out and get past enough of the firewalls so we could find something for Jake to do while we waited for his mom to come back. I hacked Netflix." Eric held up his remote pad, "Besides, I'm still running those serial numbers. I can multi-task. Work on this, watch the kid, watch the movie…" He petered off, realizing G wasn't just playing with them like he'd expected him to be.

"And this is what you chose?" G accused, with less levity than Nate would have expected. This wasn't a high-pressure case, there wasn't any reason for him to be quite as annoyed as he was.

"It's rated PG," Nate said.

"But it's _stupid_," G said with more vehemence than Nate thought necessary. "Anyway, Eric, can you stay for a bit? Kensi and his mom should be back in about twenty minutes. Nate, we need you back in Ops."

Eric and Nate both agreed quickly, not sure what had Callen so annoyed.

Nate followed Callen out to his car and got in. "Did we do something wrong? Should I have told Eric to go straight back?"

Callen slammed his door shut and then let out a long breath. "No. I'm not… I'm not pissed. It's just that stupid movie."

"It's _Star Wars_. It's one of the old _Star Wars_ films. It's fine for a ten-year-old." Nate was stymied.

"But it's a _stupid_ film," G insisted. "Luke's the hero, right?"

"One of them," Nate agreed. "Actually one of the reasons people – most people – love these films is because there's a hero for everyone to identify with. The traditional 'bad ass' in Han Solo, the 'good kid' in Luke, women love Leia, kids like the little fuzzy guys and the robots."

"Yeah, yeah, but Luke's like, the big deal, kill the evil bad guy, hero right?"

"I guess so. Why do you have a problem with that?"

"Because he's a moron! He spends his life training to kill the big bad guy and as soon as the guy says 'I'm your father', he does a one-eighty, can't kill the guy, gets his own arm cut off and Vader lives to kill again. What kind of fucking father-figure is that? And then he continues in the next movie to keep _trying_ to 'save' him even though the guy tried to kill him, turned his friend into a popsicle and sent an even more evil, more powerful bastard after him. Who the hell does that just because they share some DNA with someone? Cut the fucker loose. Kill him before he kills you. What the hell was Luke thinking?"

Nate was rarely caught completely off-guard by the kinds of things that got under the skins of the people he worked with, but this wasn't something he could see coming, though if he'd been given reason to think about it, he might have suspected that G would think along these lines. But why the hell would he have ever have thought about it?

Callen had issues with some of the vagueness and cruelties in his past, as Nate expected him to, but he almost never brought them up in front of him. And if he did, it was to make some matter of fact statement or glib comment. This was… unexpected. Though after the conversation they'd had last month about Callen feeling that his identity was based on him being expendable, he figured he might want to start getting used to these sudden bouts of sharing from him.

Nate wasn't sure if he was being challenged to pick up the conversation, or if Callen really thought he could go on a tirade like that and have Nate just go, "Oh, okay then."

"So if someone showed up claiming to be related to you?" He decided to push. Callen could, and would, tell him where to shove it if he didn't want to discuss it.

"And tried to kill me?" Callen pressed the analogy. "Have you seen my scores on the range, Nate?"

"I saw _you_ on the range, last month, remember? So if they said they were related to you, you wouldn't give them a second chance?" Nate pressed. They had about eight minutes before they got back to Ops, at which point, Nate was sure, this conversation would be over.

"I shot Keelson."

"Yes, you did. Are you going to tell me that you didn't hesitate for even a fraction of a second more than you would have if you didn't think he had information on you?"

Nate could see Callen's knuckles blanch as he gripped the steering wheel tighter. "I don't think I had enough time to process that. He had a gun, I shot first."

Nate waited, knowing there was more to it than that.

"It was reflex. He had a gun, he started to raise it… I fired."

Nate wasn't sure if doing this while Callen was driving was the best idea he'd ever had, and he wasn't entirely sure that he wasn't being manipulated into doing this very, very quickly, before they got back to Ops, but he'd learned that didn't have a choice but to take the few opportunities Callen gave him. "You know, things were more than a little crazy after that and we never did do a proper shooting interview after Keelson. Want to tell me the whole story?"

The vast majority of G's shooting interviews went the exact same way. Callen would tell him the story, tell him that he was okay with there being one less bad guy in the world and Nate would sign him off. Not because he was expected to, but because he knew that Callen really was okay with having shot someone who would have otherwise gone on to hurt people who didn't deserve it. This one might actually go differently, he realized.

Callen watched the traffic in front of him intently for a few seconds before starting. "He came to watch me get shot. He sent a lacky to kill me, but Sam got the guy first. I knew who Keelson was because when everyone else in that park started running and hitting the deck, he stood there and watched. I chased him up onto the balcony of the observatory, got him cornered and trained my weapon on him. He had a gun, but it was down at his side, so I thought he was going to give himself up. I started to lower my gun so I could cuff him, but he raised his, so I fired. End of story."

"He didn't say anything? Didn't try to distract you so he could get his weapon up? Tempt you into letting him go so he could give you the information he had?"

G cast a quick glance in Nate's direction, clearly annoyed that Nate was good enough at his job to know exactly how Keelson would play it. "Yeah, he tried. He said that if I killed him I'd never know whatever it was he said he knew."

"You said you started to lower your weapon before he raised his. Was it because you thought he was no longer an active threat, or was it because you wanted what he had? And if you need me to say it, yes, we will count this as an official interview and anything you say will stay between us."

The silence in the car as the traffic whizzed by was oppressive. Nate wondered if Callen had even thought through the answer for himself, let alone how he'd explain it to someone else.

"I don't know," he finally said quietly. "I started to relax my stance, but I knew better than to really let down my guard – I sure as hell didn't _trust_ him. But I –" Callen blew out a breath. "I don't know what I would have done if he hadn't tried to shoot me." He shrugged, "But it's a moot point. His gun came up, mine came up faster. I'd rather live not knowing about my past than not live to keep looking."

"Good attitude," Nate commended, willing to let the discussion stand at that point. G would work out for himself, eventually, if he'd have let Keelson go or if he would have bargained with him for the information. One thing G was good at was letting go of things that couldn't be changed.

"You do know Sam's already given me the third degree over all this, right?" Callen asked after a few more seconds of silence.

"I suspected," Nate responded casually. "He have any brilliant insight?"

"Just that he's glad I have quick reflexes and a strong will to live," Callen said, and then added quietly, "And that if Keelson got something, then something's out there. Maybe I just haven't gone through every possible database that might have _something_."

"Maybe you don't want to. Not as much as you think you do. The subconscious is a very powerful thing. You once said to me that if you had family, had an identity, you wouldn't know who you are." Nate frowned as G turned off the main road and onto the long dusty driveway to the Ops Center and parked next to Sam's Challenger.

"Well, guess I'm not going to have to worry about that for a while, am I?" G said as he killed the engine and got out, almost sprinting to the door before Nate could continue the conversation.

"Guess not," Nate said, to the empty car before climbing out.


End file.
